If
it looks like an elephant and walks like an elephant,
it’s an elephant, thought Captain Trevor Watson.
For some reason, though, the higher powers
within the South African Police weren’t buying the wisdom.
He stood at the entrance to the rich man’s
garage, the smell of car fumes still tarnishing the night air. He scanned the
confined space.
“This exactly how you found it?” he asked
Jones.
The pimply constable stood to attention. “Yes,
sir.”
To the left side, a Ford Cortina with a teddy
bear on the back seat. A silver BMW to the right. An expensive status symbol
car for him, a practical one for her, Watson noted. That in itself said
something about the dead man. A garden hose extended from the Beemer’s exhaust
to the driver’s side window.
They had all the garage doors open now, airing
out the interior before proceeding with the investigation.
“Your thoughts, Constable?”
Let the
youngster learn on the easy ones.
Jones shrugged. “Looks like a suicide to me.”
“Right.” Did to Watson too, but obviously the
brigadier had a different take on it to call him when he wasn’t up on the
rotation. Watson knew better than to complain. After last week’s crap-out
session, his job was hanging by the proverbial thread, except in his case the
thread was thinner than a hair and more brittle than a dry twig from a thorn
tree.
Officially, he’d been in the right. A white
property owner had the legal right to shoot a black burglar, provided a warning
shot had been fired first. The way some policeman worked, they would fire that
warning shot themselves when they arrived at the crime scene and found only one
spent cartridge. Some policemen, but not him. A week ago, Watson had been
called out to a shooting scene: one dead burglar, one shot fired. Only one
shot. Instead of fixing up the scene after the fact, he had chosen to obey the
letter of the law, arrest the white homeowner for culpable homicide. The result?
The guy who shot the burglar without warning got off with a smack on the wrist.
Watson, given the history of his employment in the South African Police, came
out with excrement stuck to both boots.
Remember whose side you’re on, Watson, the
brigadier’s words kept ringing in his ears. One false move. Just one, and you’re
finished. I’m watching you.
So. Saturday night, and he’d been pulled out
of bed to investigate yet another suicide. Yet another white
middle-aged guy whose life of luxury had blown up in his face. Watson
remembered the outline of the man’s sprawling mansion, eyed the BMW, tried to
understand. No go.
“Word has it he’s some sort of big shot. That
right?” Jones swatted at his forearm, brushed off the dead insect. “Bloody
mozzies.”
“Far as I know, the victim hasn’t been
positively identified yet. Both cars and this residence, though, are registered
to a scientist doing classified work for the government. That’s why all sorts
of trip wires sounded the alarm the moment the call came in.”
“Live by the sword, die by the sword, hey,
Captain?”
Watson
waved a mosquito away from his own arm. Shook his head. “It’s not as though the
victim…” his memory was still sluggish from the sex marathon he’d had only half
an hour before, “this Gordon Pretorius…” He paused, found his train of thought.
“Not as though he died of poison, or a bomb explosion, or whatever it is
government scientists create in their labs.
(link to the book)
